2013 F1 cars

The Red Bull RB9 has been seen for the first time at the team’s base in Milton Keynes.

This is the car the team hope will bring them a fourth consecutive constructors’ championship. Sebastian Vettel is aiming for the same in the drivers’ championship – but team mate Mark Webber will be out to claim the title for himself.

Team principal Christian Horner said continuity and stability within the team gave him confidence they could capture both championships for the fourth year in a row.

“We’ve got continuity in the driver line-up for a fifth year. We’ve got continuity throughout all of the key technical areas,” he said.

“There’s a fierce determination to keep both those trophies in the cabinet at Milton Keynes for another year.”

Chief technical officer Adrian Newey described the car as an evolution of the previous year’s RB8. He said the car does incorporate a vanity panel, though it does not extend to the full length of the nose as the increased weight could not be justified.

The RB9 has a slightly revised colour scheme incorporating more purple, to reflect the team’s title branding from Infiniti.

Having seen some of the cars so far, I think 2013 could be a season with some of the most beautiful cars for a while. Then again, we may just be so overwhelmed by their beauty due to having got used to 2012’s slim pickings…

Neat colours but they’re just not good for a Bull. I’ve gotten too used to their livery, it’s just like when McLaren switched from their Marlboro livery to the West one and then to the current Vodafone. Still, very good looking. More pics will reveal more technical details :)

1) They clearly didn’t think it through. If they were trying to prevent photos, it means that there was something on the car that they did not want photographed. All the other teams have placed 2012-spec parts on sensitive areas of the car, which is what Red Bull should have done.

2) They wanted all of the fireworks of a live launch event, but they probably only wanted approved photos to be released – ie the photos that they took and authorised to be sent out. Which again suggests that they didn’t think things through, because they invited the media (who all brought their cameras since that’s their job). They were probably hoping that any and all stories about the launch would be accompanied by the photos supplied.

Nice work @keithcollantine but hopefully there won’t be any PR repercussions from Red Bull for breaking their no photos embargo. From where you’re sitting, there’s no way of discerning any “secret details” the team may have wanted to hide, but that may not stop them quietly blacklisting any site that took a photo.

The whole thing paints Red Bull in a bad light, actually. It’s bad PR to invite people to a launch and then run it like the Stasi, it contradicts their carefully (corporately) honed image of the “freewheeling outsiders”, and worst of all, it’s utterly pointless and stupid. A simple rule of launch spec cars is “If you don’t want it seen, don’t put it on.” Not complicated.

Mclaren launched a demonstrably different car to last year’s, and let photographers and engineers climb all over it (scarbs, I understand, was lying underneath it at one point, taking photos). There were obvious places where they had put on fake, “launch spec”, or last year’s parts. Big deal. That’s all Red Bull had to do in this case. And yet McLaren are portrayed as the stuffed shirts of the paddock.

Red Bull’s cars have looked 99% the same to the untutored eye for the past 4 years (nose step aside) and yet they’re utterly paranoid all of the time. If some other team needs to get a shot of what you’re building, they will. If they have to hire one of your engineers to steal your secrets, they will. This sort of pointless coverup just makes them look silly.

As numerous experts have told us time and time again, what matters in an F1 car is what works onyourcar, with your car’s basic philosophy. Even if another team sees one of your good ideas, there’s no guarantee they can stick in on their car and it’ll work at all. Even if it works, there’s no guarantee they’ll get the same benefit, because there may be some other part of the car under the skin, or in the engine maps, or the setup, that makes it work. Photographs don’t help there.

Out of the 7 launches so far, two teams have made fools of themselves: Mercedes by failing to learn from the “online launch” server overload fiasco last year, and Red Bull by being, well, Red Bull.

Great sum up of launches (even if mercedes event was not their real launch, they still made fools of themselves).
Even Ferrari is doing a beter launch job than RedBull while in competition for me most secret team, and expect boards from both of them at Jerez …

@hairs, if they didn’t pretend it was secret then the other teams wouldn’t be tearing their hair out trying to work out what Newey was doing, by using stuff that didn’t work for the launch they make the other teams worry about missing a trick.

It’s bad PR to invite people to a launch and then run it like the Stasi, it contradicts their carefully (corporately) honed image of the “freewheeling outsiders”, and worst of all, it’s utterly pointless and stupid.

What you’re forgetting is that we here on F1 Fanatic represent not even 1% of all Formula 1 fans. For the other 99%, they will either see a picture of the car during launch taken by the exclusive photographers, or they will not see the launch at all (probably 90% of all fans). So they have made a complete fools out of themselves for us, but the main audience will not have noticed that. That of course doesn’t mean that I don’t think the way the journalists were treated was fair.

all the mainstream f1 media were there too. The problem is that pr only works if the outlets agree to play along.

Journalists tend to take things like this personally and as a result red bull’s very expensive pr machine now has to placate them all, and massage some punctured egos. otherwise, stories about them are going to have a negative bent for a while.

Don’t forget red bull the company is only in this sort for pr. nothing else. They’re not racers, they’re not car people, they’re pr driven consumerism. Horner and vettel and newey will have to look for other backers once red bull get bored.

It’s all mind games @bascb, Who says the McLaren that was filmed was even close to their 2013 car. We all know these are basically props with new paint jobs just to entice the fans and media, the secret game has been well played by RedBull in my opinion, as it always is. On the joke side, that could be Mark’s car, he doesn’t get the upgrades till the 2nd round!

Sure, there will be many parts that will be different before the car gets to Melbourne @funkyf1, but I doubt the pull rod front suspension, or the nosecone/vanity panel have all been made just to show them at the presentation.

Certainly evolution over evolution, which probably bodes quite well for the RB boys. But my god that uber-sized, photo-realistic Infiniti logo that has taken over the the side pods is killing me. I suppose it’s only a matter of time before we see the “Waste Management” RB10 out there?

What a shambles of a launch! No live stream, no photos, no nothing. I know RBR like to brand themselves as enigmatic but this is ridiculous! Not something I expect from what I believe to be the most professional team of them all. McLaren shames you RBR.

Seriously do you believe red bull is the most professional team???
professional is not related only to fast but a couple of other things…the newspaper “The Economist” has elected Ferrari as the best place to work in Europe.
Professionalism is not related only to speed in f1. if i have to rate the team based in their professionalism i will do it like this:

It could also mean which workplace has free ice creams, or which one has the laziest supervisors. Depending on your preferences…. It however may not mean professionalism, or even have anything to do with it.

Not in my preferences but in the “The Economist” specialists preferences.

Your points are pointless and does not a reflect an opinion of an acknowledgment fan of formula 1 should have. The first point “ice creams” it is not a point. The second point ” laziest supervisors” simple is not true, since it was not Ferrari who send one of their drivers in track with insufficient fuel (the ABC of formula 1), indeed it was Red Bull and McLaren.
For McLaren i have a big respect and consider them a very professional team, with a certain history behind.
For Red Bull sorry but in one way or another the history and experience are related with professionalism (maybe 20 years from now they will become more professional). And i consider them a Bad Winners since they showed 0 respect for Ferrari with theirs declarations.
Mclaren and Ferrari had battled for years but always showed respect for each other,independently which one was the winner or the loser.

Professionalism is highly related with the quality and quantity of the work but they are not the only criterion (please reread my message).
It is true that the last year RB has made a more performant car but Ferrari was second right behind them. But in professionalism of an enterprise is not only the quality of the work which matter.

Anway you can contact “The Economist” for further explanation of their choice.
And please if you want to open a constructive debate you are free, but for a fan biased debate i’m not interested. You can like or not like Ferrari but pls give reasonable answers and explanation why u think they are not professional. I’m really interested to learn by others commenting but not in the way you have proposed it…
This site has a reputation of a good fans of f1 let’s respect this.

@alehud42 – although I agree about the aesthetics (although not the purple), wishing bad luck upon ones’ rivals is quite unnecessary. Shouldn’t you instead be wishing luck upon your favoured team, so remaining an optimist?